December 7th

Today in 1969 the TV special "Frosty the Snowman" first aired, and I probably know more about this one then the next guy. For some reason, I got really hyper-fixated on the Rankin Bass animation continuity in highschool to an embarrassing degree, so expect this one to be a little XXXL extra long as something awakens in me. Let me start by saying that this one has way more sequels than you think it does. Also for a lack of a better term for an human based artificial lifeform, I'm going to refer to Frosty The Snowman as a robot throughout this article.

There's the original animated special that was probably the most popular of the cel animated RB holiday specials, and it features the plot of the original song but instead of dying the death of a temporary elemental robot, Frosty goes to the North Pole to live with Santa, and it's implied he does actually come back to his hometown when the weather is good.

[WEBMASTER NOTE: I'm using this to cheat my arbitrary self appointed article length limit. Now back to the Frosty the Snowman essay.

Then there's Frosty's Winter Wonderland, a direct sequel that came out in 1976, and featured Frosty coming back as implied before, and then his life is changed by two new characters. The first is Jack Frost, who tries to kill Frosty for most of the special, but Frosty is really nice to him so he stops and apologizes and is a good person in the other two specials he shows up in. The second is Frosty's snow wife Crystal, who was a mundane snow person brought to life by his longing and love for her. They decided to get married after finding out they loved each other to power the magic that was keeping them both alive. and they even make a third snowman to officiate the wedding. The snow parson is never mentioned again and I often wonder how his life went after the wedding ended.

Then Frosty and Crystal get stop motion puppets and two kids in their next outing, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. Despite not being the last Rankin Bass holiday special, the only special left in the mainline RB canon is a prequel and the rest are in their own continuities, and it's a massive crossover, so it kinda feels like the grand finale to the series. The special itself starts with a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer lore retcon absurd enough I can't be mad at it, and then proceeds to put characters from 6 preceding Christmas specials, including both Frosty specials, up against the evil wizard Winterbolt. The thing is, Winterbolt has an overly elaborate plan that involves replacing Santa, killing Frosty and his whole family, and stripping Rudolph of his powers. The movie reaches a point where it's good for all the wrong reasons.

Then there's that last special in the Rankin Bass Christmas canon that acts as a backstory to the Jack Frost character, and I feel like it's objectively the most bittersweet of the animations in the continuity. The story is about the one time Jack Frost, an ethereal sprite, had a taste of humanity and the love that comes with it. But the special is one with a foregone conclusion. I'd say this special is very comparable to The Last Unicorn and The Little Mermaid. It should be mentioned The Last Unicorn's animated film adaptation was made by Rankin Bass 3 years after Jack Frost.

Well that was a long one of me unpacking things left in my head after a bizarre highschool hyperfixation. If you read all of that, I hope its contents were worth its length.]